


Weak

by 70SecretKinks



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Chapter 2 will earn explicit rating, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Rhodey Is a Good Bro, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Steve is a hard working student and RA, Tony is brilliant but weak (for buff blonds and having fun), at least that's the plan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-29
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2019-01-06 21:57:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12219738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/70SecretKinks/pseuds/70SecretKinks
Summary: Tony vows to change his hard-partying ways after waking up with yet another hellacious hangover. Until he meets Steve Rogers at the party of the year when his tenuous resolve turns to dust. So he has a weakness for tall, beefy, do-gooding blonds? What's wrong with that?





	Weak

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sabrecmc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabrecmc/gifts).



> "No thank you" is what I should've said, I should be in bed  
> But temptations of trouble on my tongue, troubles yet to come
> 
> One sip, bad for me  
> One hit, bad for me  
> One kiss, bad for me  
> But I give in so easily  
> And "no thank you" is how it should've gone  
> I should stay strong
> 
> But I'm weak, and what's wrong with that?  
> Boy, oh boy I love ya when I fall for that

“Tony.  Dude.  You still alive?”

Tony woke with a start, blinking his bleary eyes once to see nothing but a sliver of light in an otherwise darkened room.  He closed them again as the pain that had felt like a distant ache a moment ago gripped his body like a physical vice, squeezing his brain with every beat of his pulse and stealing the very breath from lungs.  His throat was dry, his lips were chapped and his mouth felt like it was full of sand-covered cotton.  Fuck.  Shrouded in darkness and crippled by pain—Tony was either dying or already dead and just now entering the afterlife in the seventh circle of Hell.

“Tony,” he heard the devil beckon him again.  “C’mon, man.  Get up.  Towers close down for lunch in twenty and I’m starving.”

Huh.  Satan sure sounded a lot like his best friend, Rhodey.

“Go away, devil,” Tony grumbled.

“Excuse me?” the evil fiend answered.  “Clearly you’re in Hangover Hell but I had nothin’ to do with it.”

Tony groaned and buried his face in his pillow.

“In fact,” Beelzebub added, “If you’ll recall, I tried to actively discourage your drunk ass from throwing back those last four kamikaze shots at the Beta house but did you listen to me?  No.  Why?  Because you never listen to me.”

“If I promise to listen now, will you stop talking?” Tony asked, wincing at the dagger of pain that pierced his left eye socket as he shifted slowly onto his side.

“You’re hilarious,” Rhodey deadpanned as he crossed the room to pull the shades up and open a window.  Maybe Tony really was dead.  His apartment did have an unpleasant odor that reminded him of road kill if that roadkill had bathed first in a bucket of booze.

“Nothing about this is funny,” Tony groused.  He wasn’t a smoker, but the way the words scraped over his vocal chords, you’d think he’d been puffing two packs a day.

“I have to disagree,” Rhodey replied as he raised his phone to snap a pic for posterity.  “Your hair looks fucking hysterical right now.  Like a cross between Beethoven and Beetlejuice.”

“Post that anywhere and that priceless video I have of you belting ‘Hello’ in the shower will be the top trending clip on YouTube before dinner.”

“And you’re calling me the devil,” Rhodey huffed.

“Why did I give you a key to my place again?” Tony asked.

Rhodey shrugged, went to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water from the fridge and tossed it on Tony’s bed.

“Because when you die like Elvis, you know I won’t leave your pathetic corpse by the toilet.  I’ll try to preserve what little dignity you still possess.  Now, drink that,” he ordered before turning to rifle through Tony’s desk in search of acetaminophen.

“Shit,” Tony hissed as he struggled to sit up.  “Well, you can give my key back now because that’s not gonna happen.  I am never drinking again.”

The smirk on Rhodey’s face as he passed Tony the painkillers was equally annoying and deserved.

“Pretty sure you said those exact words last Wednesday, Tones,” Rhodey chuckled.  “You know, for as smart as you are, some things you can’t seem to learn.”

Tony popped the pills, chugged the water and aimed a stiff middle finger in his smug friend’s direction before slumping back against the headboard.

“I mean it this time,” Tony said.  The foolish declaration was punctuated by a vulgar hiccup-belch that forced the acrid taste of the prior night’s poor choices up Tony’s throat and onto the back of his tongue.  He swallowed it back down with a pained expression and a renewed sense of regret.  Fucking kamikazes.

“Uh huh,” Rhodey replied, turning his face away from the sickening smell and fanning his hand in the air in a futile attempt to clear it.  “Well, not that I don’t support the preservation of your liver and all, but you might want to hold off on joining AA until after the biggest party of the year.  Be a shame to fall off the wagon before it even got hitched to the horse.”

“That party isn’t happening for another month,” Tony reasoned.  “It takes twenty-one days to form a new habit.  By then I’ll be the picture of willpower and restraint.”

Rhodey had the nerve to full on laugh in Tony’s pallid face.  “Those are two words I would honestly never use to describe you.  Like, ever.”

“How about ‘hate’ and ‘crime’?” Tony moaned.  “Because I know a person of color who’s about to receive the business end of a fist.”

Rhodey laughed.  “A fisting?  Baby, it’s not a hate crime if I’m into it.”

 

_Meanwhile, in the main library across campus…_

“So,” Sam started, looking up from the thick aeronautical engineering book that was open in front of him.  “You put your request in to have the 10th off from rounds yet?”

Steve nodded and continued to shade the quick pencil sketch of R2D2 he’d doodled in the margins of his term paper outline.  “Yeah,” he replied with a defeated sigh, “Last week.  Along with every other RA on campus.”

“Dude, you haven’t missed a shift since the day you landed that cushy job and oversized, private room.  Doesn’t that count for something?”

“No.  Not really,” Steve answered, dropping his pencil and leaning back in his chair to stretch.  "In fact, I’ve been thinking about rescinding my request.  Give someone who really wants to go the party a chance to."

Sam let out a low whistle and rolled his eyes.  “Well, I'll be sure to let the world of internet porn know that it has to step up to the plate that night, because once again Steve Rogers will be lonely.”

“I’m not lonely,” Steve countered.  “I have…friends.”

Sam closed his book with an intentional thud and folded his arms over his chest.

“What?” Steve asked as his cheeks turned pink with embarrassment under Sam’s judgmental glare and the curious/annoyed looks from the other students working nearby.

"You do realize it’s your responsibility as a red-blooded, college coed to spend at least a few nights during your four year term getting completely shit-faced and making questionable decisions with your clothes off, right?” Sam probed.  “Ya know, the kind you’ll reminisce fondly about ten years from now when you’re too old to party and too tired to do anything else because you’re working three jobs to rent a shitty apartment, repay your student loans and afford the meds needed to treat the hypertension you’re bound to have following a decades-long diet of Ramen?”

Steve frowned as he considered Sam’s words and how he should reply.  But before he even had a chance, the petite brunette who’d been sitting at the table next to them stood from her chair and started to clap loud and slow.  Like a locker room scene from an underdog sports movie, the singular, slow clap soon swelled to a rousing ovation as the other students who’d been rapt by Sam’s rant soon followed suit; rising to their feet to applaud the veracity of his brief but impassioned plea.

Sam leapt up to acknowledge the crowd, waving to his unexpected supporters and taking an exaggerated bow before dropping proudly back down to his seat.  The noise died down like a flame in a vacuum the instant the librarian appeared; shushing the students into quiet submission with a menacing hiss and an equally threatening scowl.

Steve dropped his head in defeat and sighed, trying without much success to suppress the smile that he couldn’t stop from forming on his lips.  “Did you write that down first, or was it off the top of your head?”

“Does it matter?” Sam answered with a smirk.

“Fine,” Steve grumbled.  “I’ll wait and see.  But you’d better have a backup wingman lined up.  You know I only have two kinds of luck—bad or none at all.”

 

_The night of the biggest party of the year_

“I’m feeling lucky tonight!” Tony declared as he and Rhodey approached the bustling Kappa Sig house, stepping around a clichéd obstacle course of crumpled red, Solo™ cups, crushed, empty beer cans and the occasional, unidentifiable puddle on their way up the concrete steps that lead to the front door.  Though the windows had been hastily covered with a patchwork of old newspapers to shield prying eyes from the festivities inside, the thumping base beats and raucous roar from the partygoers within left little to the imagination as to what might be going on inside the longstanding Victorian.

“Sustained sobriety has made you uncharacteristically optimistic,” Rhodey replied.  “It’s weird.”

“I know, right?” Tony agreed.  “Hey, Bruno.”

The beefy linebacker/designated house bouncer beamed at Tony from his stool on the porch and offered his fist for an obligatory bump.  “Tony Stark," Bruno welcomed him with a reverent tone, "Shit’s about to get real!”

“Uh…you know it,” Tony answered a little awkwardly.

“Rhodes,” Bruno turned to address the other man with the standard bro-bump greeting.  “Try to keep him from blowing anything up in there, huh?”

“You know Tony,” Rhodey replied with a grin.  “He’s always ready to blow something.”

Bruno’s booming laughter was swallowed up by the deafening noise that enveloped them both as soon as they stepped in the house.  The wave of heat from the sheer number of people packed into the place combined with the mingled, cloying scent of beer, body odor, perfumes and piss was nearly enough to make Tony turn tail and leave.

“Shit,” he spoke loudly into his best friend’s ear.  “No wonder I’m always hammered at these things.  It’s fucking gross in here.”

“Yeah, well,” Rhodey started before being abruptly cut off by the sudden shouts and cheers that erupted from the drunken crowd who’d just now noticed Tony’s arrival.  “Good luck with all that,” Rhodey said with a wave towards Tony’s eager fan club.  “I’m gonna get a drink.”

***

“Who’s that?” Steve asked Sam from their crammed position on the beat up sofa in the center of the common room.  Being punctual had its perks—shorter lines for the keg and a coveted place to sit and people watch chief among them.  Sam laughed and gave Steve a playful elbow.

“You’re funny,” Sam said as he watched Tony fist bump and high five his way through the room.  Steve squinted to try and get a better look at the heralded newcomer without blinking his contact lenses out of his eyes.  There was something vaguely familiar about the dude, Steve thought, though he was sure they’d never met.  He would’ve undoubtedly remembered a run-in with a guy that cute and charismatic.  Even from across the room, Steve felt utterly charmed by the dark-haired man’s sexy, dazzling smile and magnetic joie de vivre.

“No, really,” Steve pressed Sam again, “Do you know him?”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up in apparent disbelief.  “Dude, do you seriously not know who that is?”

Steve rolled his eyes and took another sip of his drink.  “C’mon, man.  You know I don’t or I wouldn’t be askin’.”

Sam frowned and shook his head; disappointment at Steve’s ignorant oblivion written all over his face.  “You know, you oughta be thanking me for dragging your ass out of the dorm tonight before you turned into a full on, long-nailed, jar-pissing, Howard Hughes-ian recluse.”

Steve couldn’t help but chuckle fondly as he watched Sam toss back the last of his beer before crumpling his cup to punctuate his point.

“My savior,” Steve said drolly.  “But you still didn’t answer my question.”

Sam stood up from the couch and stretched.  “Nope,” he replied, “and I’m not gonna.  But I am gonna go grab another beer before the keg is kicked.  You want one?”

Steve held up his mostly-full cup.  “Nah.  I’m good.”

“Well, that’s debatable,” Sam teased with a smirk.  “Now go.  Mingle.  You can watch all the movies you want in the buff after the party’s over, Howie.”

Steve returned the grin and raised his plastic cup in a toast.  “Grab me a box of Kleenex on the way back, will ya?”  Sam burst into a fit of laughter and flipped his friend off before turning to weave his way towards the keg.

The second Sam had vanished from sight, two tipsy girls tried to wedge themselves into the small, still-warm space next to Steve, accidentally elbowing him and spilling their beers on him in the process.

“Oops!” one of them giggled as she tried to slide onto Steve’s lap instead.  She pawed clumsily at the spreading wet patch on Steve’s tight-fitting, dark grey t-shirt.  “I can try to suck that off if you’d like?” she offered with a woozy smile.

“Uh…that’s okay,” Steve stammered nervously.  “I think I’m just gonna…”  His words trailed off as he gestured vaguely towards the rest of the room.

The girls shrugged and quickly turned to lavish their attention on the drunken frat boy who was seated on their other side.  Steve blew out a sigh of relief as he extricated himself gingerly from the overcrowded couch.  He made to take another sip of his piss-warm beer but then decided against it.  He’d promised Sam he’d go to the party and try to have a little fun.  He didn’t vow to get loaded on shitty swill in the process.

Just as Steve turned to place his cup amongst the growing collection of abandoned soldiers littering the coffee table, he was nearly knocked on his ass by a sudden wave of off-balance bodies crashing into him.  He braced himself on the corner of the table and pushed back, looking over his shoulder for the source of the commotion.  A couple of inebriated idiots were throwing sloppy punches in the middle of a packed-to-the-rafters party.  Fucking frat boys.

Then the yelp of female voices came, as the brawling drunks bounced from Steve and into a group of girls.  Alright, that’s just about enough of this, Steve thought.  He turned around and grabbed one of the combatants by the collar with one hand and his belt by the other and yanked him out of the pile of flailing party-goers.  Steve dragged him to the back of the house where there was an open, sliding glass door and dumped the dumbass out into the yard.  No sooner had the bro landed with a thud on the grass than a second bro followed quickly behind, landing atop the first one.  Steve turned to see the literal life of the party standing next to him with a self-satisfied smirk curving up his pink, chapped lips.  His thick, dark hair had gotten tousled in the scuffle making him look impossibly hotter.

“Well, that’s my good deed for the day,” the brunet said, nodding towards the mound of drunkenness trying to untangle itself in the yard.  “Or, for the semester really.”  He offered his hand to Steve.  “Tony Stark, mechanical engineering and campus celebrity.”

Steve shook his hand.  “Steve Rogers, graphic design and humble RA.”

“Well, Steve Rogers, humble RA, why don’t you let me buy you a drink for a job well done?  You’re a credit to your craft of… RAing I guess.”

“I’m not on the clock right now,” Steve said.  “That was pro-bono RAing.”

Tony smiled.  “I’m more into amateur bono-ing.  Still, it’s all the more reason to get you a beer.  All RAing and no play makes Steve a dull boy.”

Steve raised his eyebrows in surprise.  “You’d be amazed how often I hear that,” he replied, chuckling.

Tony grinned and worried his bottom lip between his teeth as he took Steve in.  His big, brown, eyes roamed unabashedly up and down the tall blond’s sculpted body making Steve’s cheeks flush pink and warm as his body thrummed to life under the other man's attention.  When Tony’s eyes finally returned to Steve’s face, he actually looked a little flushed himself.

Tony scratched his fingers through the neatly trimmed goatee on his chin and cleared his throat.  “So…about that drink. You in?”

Steve smiled back and nodded.  “Sure.”

“Great!” Tony replied as he turned to walk back into the house.  “C’mon then, I know where they keep all the good stuff.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! So, I've been promising the incredibly talented author and overall wonderful human being, sabrecmc, a gift fic for a literal age now. A while back, I basically bribed sabre to give writing a Stucky fic a go in exchange for my first attempt at crafting a Stony story. Sabre delivered an unbelievably deep and unique story titled, "Chiaroscuro" this past May. I'm still smashing my kudos button in response. 
> 
> Now, if you've read the first part of this tale to make it to these notes, then you've discovered that this story is neither deep nor all that unique. But I hope you enjoy it just the same. :-)
> 
> As for the second half - although I've already gotten a good start on it, I'm not exactly sure when it'll be done and posted. I appreciate you patience in advance! 
> 
> Lastly, I'd like to thank you for letting me dabble for a bit in this dedicated fandom...it's been more of a challenge than I expected (sabre made it look so easy!), but I've been having a great time trying!


End file.
